No, Amber is actually Willis in a skin suit. They’re all actually Willis in a variety of masks. Its like the end of The Prisoner: at the end of DoA they pull off Amazi-girl’s mask and Willis is underneath, laughing at us insanely before running up a ladder and slamming the hatch, trapping us in The Village forever.

Though criminals can be argued to be more dangerous, assume for the sake of the argument that this comparison is controlled for that and refers to non-criminals that are equally dangerous in a self-defense situation.

I assume it’s a robbery. Like, she was in a store (maybe a 7/11 type thing?) and the place got held up. I could be wrong. The scene with Ethan is just…ahhhh. So much emotion! Seriously, this strip is well done. I have a night full of rolling around on the ground crying planned.

I’m not sure it really counts as a two-year foreshadow – didn’t we learn A) that Amber had witnessed a robbery and B) that Sal had committed one in relatively close proximity? The fact that no-one had made the connection at the time doesn’t really change that, there’s nothing special about _this_ comic that makes the connection either (whereas the actual in-comic reveal, assuming it’s true, could be as far in the future as that is in the past)

Ha, I wish! No, I was helped by two things: 1, Willis calls attention to it in the printed Book 1 (which I have read through several times), and 2, one of the panels from that strip was made into one of the DoA site banners.

I’ll admit, part of it doesn’t make sense to me. She said the robbery happened when she was 13. Sal and Amber are about the same age. So, what? Sal robbed a store when she was 13? I feel like Sal needs to be a couple years older than that for it to work.

And through the magic of the multi-tag system, I’ve just verified that (at least on camera), Amber and Sal have never spoken to each other. The only other time they even see each other is at a floor meeting.

Most likely this. There’s a second reason it’ll be Ruth that hasn’t been mentioned yet: Ruth implied that she knows what Amber is going through, even if it’s a vague abstract “problems with father-types” similarity. Ruth is also repurposing her internal demons into something resembling a good cause: being a good R.A. Neither of them are doing a great job of any of it, but it’s similar.

The main problem with this is that it means a new character dynamic that wasn’t there before… being thrown into the unstable existing dynamic that is Ruth-Billie. If I’m right, and Willis pulls this off, he gets pushed way up on my Most Impressive Author list.

I’m guessing that Sal must have humiliated Blaine somehow during the robbery and that led Blaine to take it out on Amber’s mom. I’m guessing that Blaine and Amber/Amazigirl will run into Sal with Billie just failing to catch up and see that Sal isn’t Amazigirl.

This strip shows how much of her emotions Amber is locking away. Blaine is the cause of the events that triggered the emotions she is locking away. Therefore, Paul wants to rewatch Blaine suffer for his crimes.

But there’s a big difference between a therapeutic release of emotion, and emotional abuse causing someone to relive the most traumatizing events in their lives. And even if good does come from this, I can still hate Blaine for putting Amber through this in the most painful way possible.

Amazi-girl is the self confident part of Amber. Check back in the old strips, she created ‘her’ to allow herself to strike back. She’s safe behind her mask, if she doesn’t put herself behind it permanently.
Come’on Ruth find her for cryin’ out loud.

Reminds me of an old JLA comic book collection where Batman and Superman do the big reveal to he rest of their teammates. And then aliens split the heroes from their secret identities.
So Batman/Bruce becomes a bland socialite and a tactician and warrior with major anger issues and no impulse control. And it took Eel O’Brian, sleazy P.I./criminal to figure out that the one with the anger issues was Bruce, not Bats.

Dammit, Willis! Stop transitioning to new storylines. We were focused on Amber here. Now you jump to Amazigirl? At least before you would wait to transition between strips. Now its like Amber Amber Amber Amber Amber BAM Amazi Amazi. Just stick to one character at a time, man!

(This is probably more funny in my head than reality. Too tired to care! Night everybody!)

True. But this is also the man who is chasing his daughter through the halls of a dorm hall after emotionally abusing her in front of several witnesses, and physically assaulting an RA and another parent in front of even more witnesses.

Subtly doesn’t seem to be his strong suit, if you piss him off enough, is what I’m trying to say.

Oh great, then we could have Amber travel to a weird pillow world, meet the love of her life and marry there, grow old and on her deathbed, her mate would ask her to never forget her only for Amber to forgot him/her after she came back. Yes, Puhoy is one of my favorite episodes of Adventure Time along with Simon and Marcy and Five More Short Graybles.

And the most composed character has suddenly become a middle-class Batman’s worth of issues. I’m going to shake my head, and hope for a character foil to just balance out this mess, heck I’d take a loveable super villain at this point.

Now we know why she chose Danny for a BF. His blandness wasn’t a fault, it was a selling point. Danny unequalled ability to not emotionally arouse is perfect for a girl who is afraid of strong feelings.

This has got to be one of the most unhealthiest ways of dealing with your problems that I have ever seen or thought of. And I have a screwball imagination, so that kinda says something. And I feel like it’s only gonna get worse from here.

I think we can all agree that Amber is the most screwed up member of the cast at this point, and is the best at hiding it. Which is probably why she’s so messed up.

I can understand that. Unfortunately, from what I’m seeing, it doesn’t seem to have helped Amber very much. These last couple comics, especially this one in particular, have shown just how tenuous her grasp on her sanity really is.

She might be re-purposing her anger into helping others, but she doesn’t seem to have done much to help /b/herself/b/.

Finally we can get the whole Amber = Amazi-Girl thing out the way. I got pretty tired of the jokes suggesting otherwise early on. Even those would defend the notion by saying this is just cosplay can’t (realistically) argue with the character tags of truth!

Oh man she’s made an alter ego in which she’s always calm and controlled and using familiar parts from that to anchor herself to a stable state of mind!
And possibly Sal robbed her parents’ convenience store?
ghh so intense

Amber? Why is Ethan in the third panel when you’re trying to suppress your rage, Amber? Did you do or say something to Ethan at that moment that you regret, Amber?

For the record, your attempts to bury and re-direct your rage, as opposed to taking pride in it like your father, are what make you different than him. It can be a thin line, but it means there’s still hope for you.

That’s when he told her he was gay. On their prom night. When they were in the process of doin’ it. This isn’t all about rage, it’s about her compartmentalizing all of her emotional trauma and hiding it behind the mask.

Wait, isn’t Billie still trying to track down Amazi-girl? Isn’t Amber’s Dad chasing Amber? Isn’t Billie chasing Amber’s Dad? And Amber is wearing her mask…this could get really interesting in a few panels….

I’m talking about the Barry Allen who first appeared in SHOWCASE and went on to have a good thirty years of adventures in his own title, ending with an iconic sacrifice in the first Crisis – without any of the gratuitious, disgusting revisionist baggage that Johns (like many fanboys stuck between their unironic childhood love of a simple, unambiguously heroic paragon and the guilty need to make him as “mature” as they now imagine themselves to be) tainted the character with when he brought him back.

Superman is NOT without issues. His entire race was killed, and he constantly has to hold back to not destroy the planet. At times, he clearly has anger and control problems. He’s just very disciplined, but he has issues, too.

The reason there are not many stories about perfect, happy families is that happy families tend to be happy in the same way, and therefore, are boring.

Think it was starting to be “repressed” – until she realized where Amazi-Girl comes from; a repurposing of the anger and helplessness she has felt, channeling it into this secondary identity where it can be expressed relatively harmlessly.

And there was Ethan, suddendly alone with this girl he couldnt recognize anymore, a crazy gleen in her eyes, grinning at him while tearing the buttons of his shirt. “Is this what the pig feels when its going to get porked?” he thought “I am supposed to get exited by her shallow breathing in my face?”. Because as might as he tried he couldnt return the lustful glances of Amber rubbing against him. He was not aroused at all. “This is it” he told to himself. “I ought be gay”…
Little he knew that the flu was blocking her powerful feromones making him inmune to the charms of violent sexual approach.
🙂

yeah, yeah, I know. In the other universe he is such and such. But, image for a moment, that this panel alone, is all you know about the matter. 😀

There’s been a flashback to something similar, but it showed about the same amount of information (I don’t have the exact strip, but I think it was when Danny asked Amazi-Girl about why she started crimefighting). So we don’t have details yet, just guesses.

David, this whole exchange and development is really potent. I’m still new to all of your work, but a little bit of the story and each universe becomes clearer every day. These past few weeks have been just as definitive to your writing and art. Dang, man. Really well done.

what? were we really not supposed to know this years ago..? there have been whole storylines playing up the funniness of amber being friend and girlfriend of the same guy. I’m about the densest person I know and I was so confused by this comic because I didn’t even realize it was supposed to be a secret…

I’ve always been able to relate all too well to Amber, especially in the horrible-dad department… Blaine and Amber’s relationship is so horrifyingly like the one i have with my dad that it feels like Willis is following me around all day. Really, really well written. Down to the hugely satisfying rage followed immediately by self-hatred and a slew of emotions that drag you down further and further, reading Amber’s last few strips has been like looking in a mirror, it just strikes so close to home.

I figured it out, this is all just Willis’s plan to get us to like Danny, whose gonna find her there and comfort her, her boyfriend. he’s gonna learn her secret and be there for her, god damnit Willis is the cleverest man I ever met!

Man. I teared up at this. The look on her face in the second to last panel, as she’s frantically tying on her mask so she can ward away all of those feelings…mere moments before that electric, paralyzing panic completely overwhelms her. Incredibly moving. I like to think I don’t have any of the same kinds of issues as Amber, but nonetheless I find empathizing with her a simple thing.

ok after today’s strip (just check the date, I won’t link it here in case people are archive binging) I came back to this one and just AAAUUUGH CRYING, GOOD GOD, what a ridiculously intense and well drawn and incredible character.